Netherlands and Flanders Celebrate the Season with BlackFace.

December 6th marks the arrival of Zwarte Piet (“Black Pete”) in the Netherlands.

"Stupid Flanders"

That’s right, the former slave(s) of Sinterklass are here to mark the beginning of Christmas.
This tradition takes place in the Netherlands and Flanders (Northern Belgium). Dating back to the 1850’s, Zwarte Piet is both the handyman and bad sidekick of Santa. If you’re good, Santa gives you a gift. If you’re bad, Zwarte Piet hits you with a switch and makes fun of you.

Is Piet a racist symbol from days gone by?

There’s always somebody upset when they hear about a black face former slave of Santa. And rightfully so. Black Pete technically first appeared in 1845, but the tradition goes back to the good guy, Santa, hanging out with the bad guy, the devil. Historical fiction showed the devil as being dark or black, so Santa’s “helper” and alter ego became a black slave. They’ve tried to whitewash the issue by saying he was in black-face because he went down the chimneys; but that makes about as much sense as the Sambo’s Restaurant in Santa Barbara.

In parts of Boston, this will get you shot.

Oh, and the best part of the Dutch tradition: Santa basically vacations in Southern Spain. No North Pole. So Sinterklass, or the Dutch Santa, is basically like Sammy Hagar, vacationing in Europe’s version of Cabo San Lucas, getting fat, tan and drunk. Mazel Tov.

Subscribe

About Red Eye Gravy

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.more →